Frans Gunnar Bengtsson’s The Long Ships resurrects the fantastic world of the tenth century ad when the Vikings roamed and rampaged from the northern fastnesses of Scandinavia through the Straits of Gibraltar to Byzantium in all its fabled splendor. Bengtsson’s hero, Red Orm, is a boy when he is abducted from his Swedish home by the Vikings and made to take his place at the oars of the dragon-prowed ships. He then has the misfortune to be captured by the Moors in Spain, where he is initiated into the pleasures of the senses. Escaping from captivity, Orm goes to Ireland, plays an ever more important part in the intrigues of the various Scandinavian kings and clans and dependencies, helps defeat the army of the king of England, and returns home an off-the-cuff Christian convert and a very rich man. Packed with pitched battles and blood feuds, founded in history and told with high good humor, Bengtsson’s book is a fantastic adventure that features one of the most unexpectedly winning heroes in modern fiction.

Curiously, the title for the British edition that came out in October is The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest (hornets, plural), whereas this forthcoming North American edition from Random House USA & Penguin Canada is entitled The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (hornet, singular). Not sure what to make of this…

In the third volume in the explosive trilogy that has sold more than 13 million copies worldwide, Lisbeth Salander confronts political corruption from her hospital bed while a killer lurks next door.

As The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest opens, Lisbeth Salander—the heart and soul of Larsson’s two previous novels—is under close supervision in the intensive care unit of a provincial Swedish city hospital. And she’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: when she’s well enough, she’ll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for a triple murder. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will have to prove her innocence, and identify and denounce the corrupt politicians who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to become victims of abuse and violence. And, on her own, she will plot her revenge—against the man who tried to kill her, and the government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.

Once upon a time, she was a victim. Now, Lisbeth Salander is ready to fight back.

Salander is plotting her revenge – against the man who tried to kill her, and against the government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life. But it is not going to be a straightforward campaign. After taking a bullet to the head, Salander is under close supervision in Intensive Care, and is set to face trial for three murders and one attempted murder on her eventual release.

With the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his researchers at Millennium magazine, Salander must not only prove her innocence, but identify and denounce the corrupt politicians that have allowed the vulnerable to become victims of abuse and violence. Once a victim herself, Salander is now ready to fight back.

Lisbeth Salander—the heart of Larsson’s two previous novels—is under close supervision in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: when she’s well enough, she’ll stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will have to prove her innocence, and to identify the corrupt politicians who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse. And, on her own, she will plot her revenge—against the man who tried to kill her and the government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.

Once upon a time, she was a victim. Now Lisbeth Salander is ready to fight back.

The Consorts of Death
Gunnar Staalesen
Arcadia Books (Eurocrime)
ISBN 978-1-906413-38-5
May 2010
$12.95 in Canada

‘I got a telephone call from the past.’

Thus begins the thirteenth (other sources list it as the fifteenth) novel in the series about Bergen detective Varg Veum.

It is September 1995, and Veum is in his office when a telephone conversation takes him back twenty-five years, to a case he was involved in while working as a child protection officer, during the summer of 1970. A small boy was separated from his mother under tragic circumstances. But that had not been the end of it. In 1974 the same boy had surfaced in connection with a sudden death in his new home. And then again ten years later, in connection with yet another case: a dramatic double-murder in Sunnfjord. The small boy is now an adult, and on the run in Oslo, determined to take revenge on those responsible for destroying his life, among them the former child protection officer, now detective Veum.

Short-listed for Sweden’s August Prize, Rynell’s To Mervas is a vivid exploration of both external and internal wilderness. Marta, a middle-aged woman who has withdrawn almost completely into herself, is jolted back into contact with the world by a letter from her once great love. Physical and emotional abuse, longing and loss, and the nature of love and redemption are explored with remarkable empathy and a visceral lyricism in Rynell’s wrenching novel.